Sometimes you just have to take the first step

Last Thursday afternoon, I found myself standing inside Terminal A at Boston Logan Airport, waiting to audition to become the official “Voice of Logan.”

I even ended up auditioning on stage.

If you had told me a few years ago that I would voluntarily put myself in that position, I probably would have laughed.

But I did it.

And somewhere in the middle of all of it, I realized that this was about much more than a voice-over contest.

It was about taking the first step.

About 10 years ago, I took some voice acting classes. I really enjoyed them. I recorded demos. People encouraged me. I thought I had a pretty good voice.

And then I did absolutely nothing with it.

Like so many things we tell ourselves we’re going to do someday, life got busy. Work got in the way. Other responsibilities took priority. And that dream found its way onto the shelf.

Sound familiar?

When I heard about the Voice of Logan contest, Boston Logan International Airport’s search for the person who will become the voice behind its overhead announcements, my first instinct could easily have been the same one I’ve had many times before:

That sounds interesting.

Maybe I should try it.

Maybe someday.

Instead, I went.

I took the T into Boston, walked into Logan, got in line with hundreds of other people and auditioned.

And then something pretty funny happened.

NBC10 Boston was covering the auditions, and later that evening, there I was in their news coverage of the Voice of Logan contest.

Will I become the Voice of Logan? I have absolutely no idea.

But that’s not really the important part.

I showed up.

And that is becoming one of the ideas I believe in most strongly as we get closer to launching Somniam.

You don’t have to know exactly where something is going before you begin.

Sometimes the first step comes before the confidence.

Sometimes you discover the passion by trying something instead of thinking about it.

And sometimes something you put on the shelf years ago is still sitting there waiting for you.

One of the things I’ve been doing as we build Somniam is collecting stories of people who are proving this every day.

We call it the Somniam Signal.

Recently, I came across the story of a 61-year-old man who discovered improv in his 50s. He now takes classes, attends intensives and performs. His biggest complaint?

He wishes he had started 30 years earlier.

Another story was about a 56-year-old woman who left a 30-year career in risk management because she wanted her next chapter to be in women’s professional sports. She repeatedly applied for entry-level jobs and couldn’t even get an interview.

So she stopped waiting for someone to give her permission.

She started building her own business around women’s sports fan experiences.

And then there was the retired couple, both 69, whose travels eventually turned into what they call their “Year of the Pilgrimage.” They’ve cycled through Japan, ridden hundreds of miles across Iowa and are planning their next adventure along the Pacific Coast.

They didn’t begin with some enormous plan to reinvent their lives.

They started moving.

That may be the common thread in all of these stories.

The first step doesn’t have to be huge. It just has to happen.

That is really why I’m building Somniam.

So many of us have spent decades working, raising families, taking care of other people and doing what needed to be done. Somewhere along the way, there are things we wanted to try that got pushed into the someday category.

Learn to sing.

Play guitar.

Travel somewhere you’ve always dreamed about.

Start a business.

Paint.

Volunteer.

Get back in shape.

Try acting.

Or maybe audition to become the Voice of Logan.

We’re building Somniam to help make that first step easier, to help people discover what’s possible, to cut through the overwhelming number of choices, and to find a realistic place to begin.

We’re getting closer to launching, and over the next several weeks I’m going to share more stories like these.

Some will be extraordinary.

Some will be simple.

And I think the simple ones may be the most important of all.

Because maybe you don’t need to completely reinvent your life.

Maybe there’s just one thing you’ve been saying you’d do someday.

I have a question for you:

What’s something you’ve always wanted to do…but haven’t taken the first step yet?

I’d genuinely love to hear it.

Someday is now.

…Brian